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Rivian's Stock Bounces: Are We Just Kidding Ourselves?
Alright, let's talk Rivian. RIVN stock jumped a solid 7% or so the other day, nudging past sixteen bucks a share. You hear the chatter: "Long-term operational momentum!" "Investors are focused on the future!" Give me a break. My inbox blew up with folks asking if this was it, the turnaround. My answer? Not so fast, buddy. This ain't a turnaround; it's more like a particularly aggressive twitch from a patient still on life support.
I mean, let's be real. This stock is still down a jaw-dropping 91% from its all-time high of $170. Ninety-one percent! That's not a dip; that's a damn crater. It's like your buddy telling you he's 'gained momentum' after falling off a cliff, just because he managed to grab a tiny bush on the way down. The company, which went public with all the fanfare of a rock concert at $78 a share, is now trading for pocket change compared to its former glory. You wanna talk about long-term momentum? I call that long-term decline.
The narrative is always the same with these 'growth' darlings: "Ignore the losses, look at the potential!" And Rivian? They're still bleeding cash like a stuck pig. We're talking a $1.16 billion loss in Q3 alone, bringing their year-to-date hemorrhaging to $2.82 billion. Two point eight billion. That's not just a lot of money; that's enough to make a small country nervous. Yeah, they reported $1.56 billion in revenue, a 78% jump year-over-year. Sounds good, right? Until you realize that they also posted a gross margin of negative 159.38%. Negative one hundred and fifty-nine percent! They're losing money on every single vehicle they push out the door. It's like selling dollar bills for fifty cents and bragging about how many you sold. And offcourse, they're calling their first-ever consolidated gross profit of $24 million a win, thanks to software and a VW joint venture. Are we really supposed to applaud a twenty-four million dollar "profit" when you're losing over a billion every quarter? It feels like polishing a single spoon while the rest of the kitchen burns down.
The CEO's Golden Parachute and the Road Ahead
Now, here's where my blood pressure really starts to climb. While Rivian is losing more money than I've ever seen in my life, the board decided to bless CEO R.J. Scaringe with a new, ten-year performance-based compensation plan potentially worth up to $4.6 billion. Four. Point. Six. Billion. And get this: it replaces previous targets he "missed severely" and were deemed "unlikely" to be attained. Unlikely? Try impossible, I guess. So, instead of holding him accountable for missing the old, 'unlikely' goals, they just moved the goalposts and gave him a fresh, even bigger lottery ticket.
This isn't just optimistic. No, 'optimistic' is too kind—it's pure fantasy. It’s like giving a coach a multi-million dollar bonus for a future Super Bowl win after he just led his team to an 0-16 season, because, hey, the next season's targets are "ambitious." Are these guys even looking at the same balance sheet I am? I just imagine the board meeting, everyone nodding solemnly, the aroma of expensive coffee filling the air, while outside, the stock price is still a shadow of its former self.
They say the R2 SUV, priced at a more reasonable $45,000, is coming in the first half of 2026. This is their big "Tesla moment," the move from high-end niche to mass market. But let's ask a real question here: Can a company that's been in startup mode for years, burning billions, and struggling with production (they produced 10,720 vehicles and sold 13,201 in Q3—a "high-water mark" largely because government incentives were drying up) actually pull off a mass-market launch against giants like Tesla, Ford, and GM? The EV market is already a brutal cage fight. Rivian’s got $7 billion in cash, which sounds like a lot until you remember their burn rate. How long does that really last? And the Mind Robotics spinoff? Good for them, $110 million in seed funding. That's a nice little side hustle, but it ain't gonna fix the core business.
It's a High-Stakes Gamble, Not a Sure Bet
So, what are we left with? A company whose stock had a good day, but whose underlying financials are still screaming "danger." Investors are "focused on positive long-term operational momentum," which feels a lot like reading tea leaves. Analysts are mixed, and JPMorgan still has an "Underweight" rating. They call Rivian a "risky growth stock" for "aggressive long-term investors." That’s polite corporate speak for, "You better be ready to lose your shirt, because this thing could go either way, and probably will."
I'm not saying Rivian can't turn it around. Maybe the R2 is a game-changer. Maybe the VW joint venture pumps enough cash to keep the lights on and then some. Maybe Scaringe actually hits those "ambitious" targets and earns his billions. But I've seen this movie before. A flashy IPO, sky-high valuations, massive losses, and then the slow, painful grind back to reality. This latest stock bump? It feels less like a sign of health and more like a gasp for air. My gut tells me we're still deep in the woods, and the path out is a lot longer and rockier than some folks want to admit. We'll see if they can actually build a sustainable business, or if this whole thing is just another expensive experiment that burns through investor cash.